


many words for friendship

by multicorn



Series: we are shaped like stars [8]
Category: American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Morning After, Period-Typical Homophobia, Revolutionaries In Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:43:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7853044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multicorn/pseuds/multicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"It's just like you, to pick the one shred of evidence that backs up the argument you want to make, and all because you can't stand to admit that you're wrong."</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"Like you'll ever admit that doing what you want to might not be wrong?"  Alex is on fire, though also aware that he's not exactly refuting John's point.  "As if it were possible to take out all the injustice of the world on your own skin, so that the both of you could simply disappear together?  That's not how the world works, Laurens."</i>
</p>
<p>[direct sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/6262603">draw it out of me</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/7807525">all the colors turned to white</a>; these three can be read as a triptych separately from the rest of the series.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	many words for friendship

**Author's Note:**

> This and all of my Hamilton fic treats both the musical and history as sources, drawing on them for things I can use. Historical inaccuracy, especially, is likely to occur, both in its intentional and unintentional varieties.

Alex wakes up feeling happy before he remembers why. He stretches, luxuriating in the contentment that he can so rarely catch. The inexplicable warmth inside that - actually, now that he notices, isn't matched by the warmth he'd subconsciously expected to find next to him. He's in John’s bed. Blinking his eyes open through the sleep-stickiness, he can see his own bed, neat and empty, between where he lies and the gray sky visible through the square of window. But he's alone.

Where is John? It's not unusual for him to wake up before Alex, nor is it unprecedented for him to leave the room without even attempting to wake Alex first. But still, after everything that transpired between them last night, Alex can't help but be anxious when he wakes up and discovers his bedmate is gone.

There’s no reason to worry, he tells himself, and with a sharp shake of his head, he attempts to dislodge all such traitorous thoughts. John will be hard at work, downstairs. What did Alex expect, after all, to stay in bed all day? There's nothing amiss, he simply hadn't thought the immediate situation through. And last night, oh, last night had been bliss.

He thinks about it as he dresses, as he splashes water on his face, not only how John tasted, how he felt close and naked and sweaty with lust, though once those memories are recalled they’re impossible to forget. But more than anything, he marvels at the fact that his helplessly overflowing affections, and his even his most unruly desires are, it now appears, reciprocated. The eternally cold room feels warmer, the wan light that fills it seems brighter, now that he knows what John has been thinking every time their eyes meet and he looks away. He's never had quite so good a friend.

The oats at breakfast have more taste than he’s accustomed to, creamy and nutty, the cold water he washes them down with tastes fresh rather than of nothing at all. John’s dark head is bent over papers in the workroom when Alex comes in. Of course it is. Alex sits down beside him as usual, and squeezes his shoulder in greeting.

John flinches away.

Alex can't believe it. John hasn’t moved away from him since they’ve become friends. He's only ever looked closer, moved closer, and well, now Alex think he knows why, but - this. What could possibly have gone wrong, between bed last night and this morning? Alex wants to ask, but John’s uncharacteristically impassive face even in profile seems to forbid any attempts at questioning. Alex pulls the next letter from the pile to himself, attention distracted from his duties but at a loss for any other options to take.

The day wears away as worry and lingering joy eat at each other. Alex’s words don’t flow so readily as they do most days, but he works at them, and besides, he’s always making the same requests. Send us more supplies, and more men, because his main contribution right now in this war seems to be wearing down by repetition the people who claim to be on their side.

When the aides break for supper, John takes his plate to a corner alone. Alex follows him over and stands unacknowledged in front of him.

"Laurens," he starts, carefully pitching his voice low so that it won't carry, and when John finally looks up at him he's - angry? Why? "Have I done something to offend you?" 

"Forget about it," John says, shortly. His eyes drop back down to the salt pork on his plate. He’s unwilling even to look at Alex, and Alex feels keenly the difference from their eager past months of friendship. If he had known that this would be the result, he would never have responded to John’s advances.

"How could I? Tell me what I’ve done.” From a dear friend, he can forgive such a slight as being ignored, even in a situation like theirs, but in no case without reason.

"We'll discuss it later," John says. His eyes flicker past Alex to indicate the presence of their fellow aides in the room.

"Tonight," Alex says. John nods, barely. Tonight.

~

Alex means to go to bed early. The day's workload is light enough that this seems possible, if he chooses. But Tench and Meade still thump off to bed before he's ready, and as it turns out, he's the last one working again. Just as he is every night. In truth, he's reluctant to stop.

John had retired an hour ago, or maybe closer to two. There’s a part of Alex too angry to want to talk to him. But he's curious, as well, and he's not willing to lose a friendship as rewarding as theirs has become without a fight. He'll finish this last letter, and then he'll go up to bed.

When he enters their shared room, he's taken aback yet again. John’s bed is empty. Has he decided to sleep somewhere else tonight, after all? It could be he doesn’t want to talk to Alex; perhaps Alex has waited too long. So he thinks, and only then does he look belatedly to his own bed, on which, it appears, his roommate has decided to take up residence.

John is sitting as still as if he’d been carved from the same piece of wood as the bed frame, although he must have heard Alex open the door to the room. He doesn't look up, or even move, as Alex closes the door carefully behind him. He's staring off into empty space, and he looks desperately unhappy. Alex wishes he knew why.

He crosses the room and sits down on his own bed, too, careful to leave a good foot or so of space between them. "Laurens?"

"How could I do this?"

Perhaps, Alex thinks, whatever has caused so much distress, it's not my doing after all. "What did you do?"

At that John finally looks at Alex. His regard feels all the heavier for having been absent all day. His eyes are red-rimmed, as if he's been crying, and the look in them - it's a pure venom that Alex recoils instinctively from. "You know. What we did. Last night."

"Did you not… want to?" Alex asks, confusion and horror spreading out and weighing him down in equal measure. John had kissed him, had reached for him, had initiated everything between them. He had thought about it, at times, he couldn't deny, and at some length, but he'd never have translated thoughts into actions if John hadn’t moved towards him first.

"I did want to," John says, his voice thick and dripping with disgust. "I still want to. It’s horrible. Touching you - it felt better than anything I've ever felt. But then you dropped off to sleep, and I couldn't, and all night and all day long, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I can't find any peace."

"What's wrong, though?" Alex shifts a fraction closer to him on the bed. "You know that I want you, too."

"How can you say that!?" John fairly explodes right in his face, hands and hair flying. "Don't you know - ! It's perverted. Taking advantage of each other, like this, to relieve the basest of lusts. We've corrupted the sacred bonds of friendship. And, it's all my fault, and I still can't stop wanting to…" John trails off, having run out of words, but, it seems, not out of emotion. His chest is heaving as if he’s just won a race, and his words echo around and around the room. Alex is taken aback. He not only sympathizes with but loves John’s passionate rage - usually, when it's directed elsewhere. He can handle it directed at him, but wanting to calm rather than re-focus it is something new between them.

"No, Laurens, listen to me. That's not true. Have you read Plutarch’s Lives?"

"Some of them." With the changed direction of conversation, John seems momentarily distracted. "Which one are you thinking about?"

"The life of Lyrcurgus. It says the Spartan soldiers would take lovers among each other. It was part of their education, see, they would help each other perfect the arts of virtue and bravery. And they were the bravest army the world has ever known…" Alex speaks softly, trying to be not only persuasive but inviting. He lays out his hand, palm open, on the bed between them.

"That has nothing to do with us,” John says. He sounds uncertain at first, but as he goes on he picks up steam. “And it's just like you, to pick the one shred of evidence that backs up the argument you want to make, and all because you can't stand to admit that you're wrong."

"Like you'll ever admit that doing what you want to might not be wrong?" Alex is on fire, though also aware that he's not exactly refuting John's point. "As if it were possible to take out all the injustice of the world on your own skin, so that the both of you could simply disappear together? That's not how the world works, Laurens."

"Don't think you can accuse me just to excuse your own depravity."

Alex shivers. He was burning hot, but now he’s cold as ice. He gets up. "Depravity," he says. "I see. I think I'd better go."

“Must you?” John asks. The heat’s rushed out of him, it seems, as swiftly as from a punctured balloon.

Alex can’t turn off his own anger so easily. “Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”

“I’m sorry,” John mutters. It’s somewhat surprising; but still, not much of an apology.

“What for?” Alex demands.

John looks up at him through disordered curls, twisting his fingers together, eyes dark and pleading. He looks like he’s been caught in a trap, and Alex would relent if he could, but for the insistent jagged pain of John’s words like a splinter caught somewhere under his own heart. “I wouldn’t know anything about your flaws,” John says, ever so slowly, as if he were dredging up the words from the well of his mind one by one, “if I weren’t even more reprehensible myself. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t judge you.”

“You shouldn’t judge either of us,” Alex retorts. He wants to defend John, after all, but it’s difficult to see how when John’s fighting against himself like this.

“Alex - ! You love to judge people, anyway.”

“That’s true,” Alex admits. “It’s essential. One can’t avoid it. Therefore, it’s critical to choose the correct criteria to base one’s judgments on.”

John snorts. “And you judge that I’ve fallen short in this essential?”

“Exactly so.” By this time, Alex has walked back across the room to his bed. His knees knock against the edge of it, only inches from John’s, who’s still sitting there. “Will you return my bed to me, then?”

The look John gives him is indecipherable. It reminds him of last night, but after the conversation they’ve just had, it can’t possibly be the same. “I will if you insist,” John says, “but I was hoping we could share.”

“Why?”

“Nevermind. We shouldn’t.” John hasn’t moved, though. He’s still sitting on Alex’s bed.

Very well. Alex harbors no prejudices against sharing a bed with him. “Stay,” he says.

They prepare for bed silently. John removes only his coat and his shoes, and slides under the blankets, in next to the wall. Alex strips down to his shirt, as usual, and lays both of their coats over the blanket. Then he blows the candle out and slides into bed, next to John.

The warmth John radiates, next to him, feels no different from previous nights. The smell of John’s hair he associates a little bit now with sex, but mostly, simply, with falling asleep, with a friend and comrade beside him. Maybe John was right, he thinks, not about the moral depravity business, but in not wanting to endanger this friendship with the excesses of sensual attachment.

On balance and on closer inquiry, though, Alex doesn’t believe that’s true. If anything has changed in his feelings for John between now and last night, it’s only that there’s a greater tenderness there, despite the fight that just passed between them.

John is burrowing into the mattress, now. It’s a part of his falling asleep process that Alex knows, and when Alex shuffles forward and into John’s back, John reaches out a hand behind him to pull him closer.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love! Here or to me at [multsicorn](http://multsicorn.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.


End file.
